#dowries

[medievalistsnet]

When the Groom Paid the Dowry: New Study Rethinks Marriage in Medieval Catalonia - Medievalists.net

A new study reveals that in 13th- and 14th-century Catalonia, some grooms brought dowries to their brides, challenging long-held assumptions

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

What do you think Alicent Hightower's dowry was like?

I don't think she had one. Queens in ASOIAF usually don't, as far as I know, other than the favor of their families. (See for example Tywin's loans to the crown, not that they were particularly favorable loans.) And I'm not sure about in real-world history, but @goodqueenaly could help you there, hopefully!

[todaysgenderisdenniswhitaker]

Which version of the meaning of dowry did you learn first?

paid from the husband to the brides family for her hand

paid from the brides family to the husband to help with early marriage expenses

I learned of both at the same time

I dont know what a dowry is/I'm just here to press buttons

Voting ended onApr 9, 2023

[writingwithcolor]

Historical Fiction Meet Cute: British and Indian couple fall in love via translation dictionary |Dowries

@sapurarch submitted:

Im writing a story in victorian society and the lead has a friend/girlfriend whos mixed race (british Indian) and I have this scene idea where she tells them the story about how her parents met.

Her father was a sailor employed by the East Indian Trading Company and her mother was a singer at a pub in a port his ship docked at. She wanted to talk to him but neither could understand the others language well so she bought a translation dictionary to bridge that gap. The point of the story is that language shouldn't be something that divides us if you have the patience to learn it but Something I don’t want to run into is a white saviour narrative or trying to make out english is the better language (because western cultures in particular have a track record of forcing people to speak their language) so any advice on how to handle relationships between English speakers and non-English speakers would be highly appreciated.

The second part of the story I’m on the fence about adding, the guy saving up for ages to buy the women a comb as a sort of “dowry”. This would be one of those period specific things where its taboo now but back then it was perfectly normal but in my reasearch ive found that a lot of westerners seem to think that dowrys’ are still common and accepted in india (despite being illegal there) and i dont want to add fuel to the fire so would that be or not be a good idea.

Many thanks your blog is super helpful.

Research?

I think you need first improve your understanding of constitutes a dowry and the realities of a colonial South Asia/ British Raj setting. For starters, a dowry is what a bride’s family pays to the groom’s family. A bride price is what the groom’s family pays to the bride’s family. Either way, these are payments that go the families. They are typically features of arranged marriages, rather than love matches. There are other aspects of what you have written that don’t make sense. Let’s start with using the dictionary:

I wonder about literacy rates during this time period. I’d love to hear from some folks with a more thorough understanding of European history, but my memory is that most sailors, particularly on merchant ships, were poorly paid and unskilled. Functional literacy in the UK by the 19th century would have been quite high, but functional literacy and being able to use a dictionary for translation are different things. 

On the India side, literacy worsened for most of South Asia under British colonialism as a poorly funded central government replaced local, community funded education. 

For a working class woman in a less respectable career (Pubs were not a thing, but for the standards of the time, working publicly in place that sold alcohol would not have been acceptable for a woman), I wonder at her education. 

How did she procure a bilingual dictionary and what would those even would have looked like back then? Bilingual dictionaries in most non-European languages were rare. In fact, many people were creating the first versions of bilingual dictionaries for non-Western languages during this period, so where did she acquire hers from? 

And that’s just the dictionary. You also don’t provide any information about where in India these characters would have met, when (The Victorian era is a long period of time), or any pertinent details with respect to her religion, ethnicity, language, background, etc. I reiterate: research, research, research! -

- Marika.

[dwellordream]

“…When a medieval royal marriage was being negotiated, what the bride would bring to the marriage was of the utmost importance, both in terms of land through her dowry and in terms of the alliance a union of two powerful families could bring. The bride could be taken either from within the kingdom or from another one. Janet Nelson wrote that, while there were benefits for marrying within one's own aristocracy, there was also the chance that, upon the birth of a son, the family of the bride would become overly powerful.

Because of this, and because foreign brides brought together dynasties, the kings of twelfth-century England were more inclined to take a bride from outside their kingdom, with a diplomatic dowry. Regardless of where a potential queen came from, the scale of both her dowry and dower were 'an index of the prestige' of the bride, and the authority a queen held was at least partly based on this initial weighting of her standing.

In the case of Matilda of Scotland, her dowry upon marrying Henry I seems to have been quite small. William of Malmesbury wrote of Henry that 'a rich dowry was in his eyes of no account'. William reported that 'Matilda [of Scotland] brought little or nothing to the marriage in the way of material goods and spoke instead of a long-standing affection between Henry and Matilda'. This is supported by Orderic Vitalis, who wrote that the orphaned daughters of Malcolm and Margaret of Scotland had to look to God for aid. Still, it is doubtful that the sister of a neighboring king would not bring any land or other wealth as a dowry. Huneycutt suggests that, rather than having no dowry, what Matilda of Scotland brought to her marriage was seen by contemporaries as less than what was expected of a royal bride.

From this it may be seen that Matilda of Scotland was valuable more in diplomatic terms than economic ones, in that she brought with her an alliance with the king of Scotland and the prestige of marrying into the Anglo-Saxon royal line, rather than money or property. This would be a 'diplomatic dowry'. On this point, Huneycutt notes that a marriage between Matilda and Henry 'carried the possibility of an heir who would unite the bloodlines of conquerors and conquered. It would also secure the Scottish border, freeing Henry's attention for expansion into Wales and the extension of his continental holdings.'

As the daughter of the later-Saint Margaret (d. 1093), Matilda of Scotland was a descendant of King Edmund 'Ironside' (d. 1016) of the early-eleventh century, and a direct relative of Edward the Confessor (d. 1066), which may have served to help cement Henry I's right to the English throne. It may also have been the case that this marriage brought about an end to conflict between England and Scotland regarding lands that were in dispute before Henry I took the throne, a possibility that would not have been recorded as a dowry. Overall, it seems that Matilda of Scotland brought with her to her marriage with Henry I significant allies, which increased her own authority after her coronation.

This idea of a 'diplomatic dowry' is also applicable to Henry I's second wife, Adeliza of Louvain. This hastily arranged marriage both augmented Henry's existing alliance with the German empire and allowed him the chance to produce more legitimate heirs. A marriage to Adeliza brought to Henry I connections with the ducal houses of both Lower Lotharingia and Boulogne, as well as emphasized his link with his son-in-law, the Holy Roman Emperor. Robert Bartlett wrote that although Henry, while in negotiations for the marriage, may have considered Adeliza's bloodlines and youth (both factors in his need for male heirs), the main focus was more likely to have been 'immediate political calculation'.

Adeliza's father was Godfrey (d. 1139), count of Louvain and duke of Lower Lotharingia and Brabant, and an ally of Henry I's son-in-law, Emperor Heinrich V (1086–1125). As Godfrey's lands bordered Flanders, a county allied with the king of France against Henry I, an alliance Louvain and the Germans was 'particularly important', according to Bartlett. A marriage between Henry I and Adeliza of Louvain provided him with a strong political alliance. More than would have been the case had Adeliza been chosen solely for her reputed beauty and moral character, this would have likely added to her authority while she was queen.”

- Lida Sophia Townsley, Twelfth-century English queens: charters and authority

[ilmtest]

Expensive Dowries

ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allāh be pleased with him) said: “Do not make the dowry [of a woman] expensive. Were it praiseworthy [in this life] or a means of piety, the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ would have done so. He did not give any of his wives or take for his daughters more than twelve ūqiyah.” من طرق عن محمد بن سيرين عن أبى العجفاء (وقال أحمد: سمعه من أبى العجفاء) قال: خطبنا عمر رحمه الله فقال: " ألا لا تغالوا بصدق النساء , فإنها لو كانت مكرمة فى الدنيا , أو تقوى عند الله لكان أولاكم بها النبى صلى الله عليه وسلم , ما أصدق رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم امرأة من نسائه , ولا أصدق امرأة من بناته أكثر من ثنتى عشرة أوقية ". Ṣaḥīḥ; Reported by Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʿī, al-Tirmiḏī, Ibn Ḥibbān, al-Dārimī, al-Ḥākim, al-Bayhaqī, Aḥmad, al-Ḥumaydi, al-Ḍiyāʾ in al-Aḥadīth al-Mukhtarah; Al-Ḥākim said: Ṣaḥīḥ, and al-Ḏahabī agreed with him. صحيح؛ أخرجه أبو داود (2106) والنسائى (2/87) والترمذى أيضا (1/208) وصححه وكذا ابن حبان (1259) والدارمى (2/141) والحاكم (2/175) والبيهقى (7/234) وأحمد (1/40 و48) والحميدى (23) والضياء فى " الأحاديث المختارة " (1/107)؛ وقال الحاكم: " صحيح الإسناد , وأبو العجفاء السلمى , اسمه هرم بن حيان , وهو من الثقات " ووافقه الذهبى Shaykh Muḥammad Nāṣir ʾl-Dīn al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥ Irwā al-Ġalīl fī Takhrīj Aḥādīth Manār al-Sabīl 6/347 #1927 ناصر الدين الألباني، إرواء الغليل في تخريج أحاديث منار السبيل ٦/٣٤٧ #١٩٢٧ http://shamela.ws/browse.php/book-22592/page-2227 Telegram: https://t.me/ilmtest Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilmtest_ Instagram: https://instagram.com/ilmtest Facebook: https://facebook.com/ilmtest Tumblr: https://ilmtest.tumblr.com Website: https://www.ilmtest.net

[dwellordream]

“An examination of the economic abilities associated with women in the German, Lowland, and Italian regions of medieval Western Europe reveal that women had the capacity to obtain sizable amounts of land through marriage customs and inheritance laws, and could partake in the public economic realm through the production of textiles and the selling of goods. A medieval women’s influence extends even beyond the realm of economic power, however. A study of the politics of these three regions during the Middle Ages demonstrates that the political position of women was often influential.

The same German society that allowed women to partake in textile production and to acquire wealth and property through inheritance laws also recognized women as citizens. Citizenship in such cities as Lille, Bruges, Frankfurt, and Leiden during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries involved a process of registration; according to the records of Bruges, Leiden, and Frankfurt specifically, independent women were often registered “because in these cities citizenship was easily acquired and was obligatory for almost all workers.”

As “co-managers and co-owners of the household and its property...[women] were inevitably full members of citizenries with households as their constituent units.” German urban women, through their citizenship, fulfilled the “the objective qualifications for governmental positions,” although paradoxically, they were still barred from obtaining such positions by the male-dominated politics of most cities.

The German poem of Ruodlieb again provides an important insight into the actual traditions that governed a woman’s place of power in noble family life. During one of its episodes, Ruodlieb is hosting a banquet at his home, and his mother is in attendance. Ruodlieb “commanded one higher chair to be placed for his mother, so that she in this way she could be seen to be mistress.”

The poem goes on to mention that “by giving honor to his mother in this way, and holding her as his liege-lady, he earned praise not only from the people, but from the almighty a crown and everlasting life in heaven.”Ruodlieb, a noble, allowed his mother to occupy a position of power at the table, and further, such an allowance endeared Ruodlieb not only to his subjects, but also to the higher power.

In the Low Countries, women were afforded a political role as participants in public political acts. Ellen E. Kittell, in her extensive article “Women, Audience, and Public Acts in Medieval Flanders,” describes the integral roles that women employed regarding the link between public performances and law-making in fourteenth century Flemish society. Flanders was unique in that it was little affected by Roman law and rather maintained “a fundamentally Germanic system of law and custom that was based more on public negotiation among groups than on the arbitrary decisions of constituted authorities.”

As Flanders’ thriving commercial and industrial economy grew around the eleventh century, Flemish communes began to utilize citizen participation by allowing a broad cross-section of their population, a cross-section that included the women of the city, to participate in political affairs. Women thus had “routine appearances in public as chief and effective agents in the variety of oral-aural transactions...were countesses and castellans... [and part of] the legal and commercial lives of most cities”.

These public audience law systems in turn allowed women to gain influential positions of power, such as Countess Jeanne in 1206 and Countess Margaret in 1280 acquiring the role of ruling over a county. Even single women were systematically afforded similar rights to perform actions in these public hearings as their married counterparts; their independent status did not disenfranchise them from participating in the existing public political arena.

As in the German and Lowland regions, the political climate of Italy during the Middle Ages provided women with definite political abilities that would not be mirrored in the centuries to come. Although the political systems of Italy differed from those of the northern European civilization, as did their economic policies, the prevalence of powerful Italian queens during the early to mid-Middle Ages demonstrates the type of political power that Italian women could indeed wield.

Joan Kelley discusses in her article the two queens Giovanna I of Naples ruling in 1343 and Giovanna II of Naples ruling in 1414. Giovanna I of Naples was designated as heir to rule over the significant kingdom of Naples, Provence, and Sicily, and Giovanna II was similarly afforded this leadership position through the death of her brother.

Besides the powerful queen figure, other feminine rulers also prevailed in medieval Italian political culture. Matilda of Tuscany, who ruled during the eleventh century, reigned as a powerful countess in this region of Italy. She played an essential role in the conflict between Pope Gregory and Emperor Henry IV. Upon being excommunicated from the church due to his defiance to the Pope, Henry IV attacked Rome and drove Gregory into exile.

It was Matilda’s armies that defended the Pope’s church both during the Pope’s lifetime and after his death. Further, Matilda persistently excluded her husband from handling her property and allowed it to remain solely under her control. As with the other women Italian rulers mentioned above, Matilda maintained a definite sense of autonomy, and had been granted a political leadership position.

There, indeed, was a place in the economic and political sectors of society in the German, Lowland, and Italian regions of medieval Europe for the female population. The feudal and family-oriented government structure allowed for women to acquire political power, and the important economic roles that women played in society further influenced their significant status in the cultures of these regions---as David Herlihy states, “women in the early Middle Ages...played a major role in the display of kin connections; they were also stations in the flow of wealth down the generations; they were supervisors, managers, producers.”

Through changes in the political, social, and economic systems of each region, women gradually began to lose much of the economic and political powers that they previously enjoyed, however. In order to demonstrate the extent to which women suffered a loss in status and influential visibility as the Middle Ages approached the opening of the Renaissance, it is prudent to again analyze the German, Lowland, and Italian regions specifically and the changes that occurred in these areas over time. By comparing the society of the later Middle Ages and early modern period to that of the earlier medieval times, the disparities that existed for women are made remarkably evident.

Women in medieval German economic culture, as mentioned above, were active in the textile industries and allowed financial power through inheritance and marriage customs. An examination of the economic actions in later German society reveals a very different feminine condition, however. One of the first aspects of women’s economic involvement that was affected was their role in the textile industry. There was a general increase in both the guild and governmental regulations imposed on women workers.

Research performed by Merry Weisner cited in Judith Brown’s article states the consolidation of guilds in sixteenth and seventeenth century Nuremburg resulted in “regulations excluding women from traditional occupations and relegated them to the margins of the world of work.” In 1421 a major conflict emerged in Cologne concerning religious female weavers and local linen weavers, resulting in a restriction of the number of looms the women could operate.

In the town of Strasbourg, the later Middle Ages saw reductions in the roles of women in the woolen industry; “women at Strasbourg as indeed in many towns were reduced to helpers and auxiliaries.” And women in sixteenth century Nurnberg “successfully protested an ordinance of 1530 [that] deprived them of the right to employ maids in their workshops...their victory was only temporary,” demonstrating the losses in female influence occurring in the later years of the Middle Ages.

Other economic changes ensued regarding a women’s place in society as well. The bridegifts and morning gifts that allowed women to procure economic power through the acquirement of property underwent a series of reductions as the Middle Ages progressed. The earlier gifts often included deeds for property, while over the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, “fewer deeds gave the wife outright ownership, and even the usufruct was generally restricted to the use of the husband and wife jointly, not to the wife exclusively.” Eventually “daughters claim on the inheritance gradually gave way to the dowry provided by her family,” and the morning gift and bridgegift customs were changed entirely.

Also, a weakening of the feudal system in Germany also accelerated the reduction of a woman’s economic role in society, for the extensive “powers exercised by women were...largely derived from the rather irregular powers held by the great families of the age.” As the Constitutio de feudis of 1037 was passed by Konrad II, women were thereby excluded from the inheritance of fiefs, a measure which over time greatly affected their ability to obtain property and in turn an economic status in society.

To better demonstrate the assertion that women indeed did lose economic clout in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it is useful to examine the laws of German communities during this time. Such regulations are available for the German town of Madgeburg for the year of 1261. One law providing information about the measures that are taken after the death of a husband states that a widow “shall have no share in his property except what he has given her in court, or has appointed for her dower...if the man has no provisions for her, her children must support her as long as she does not remarry.”

Unlike the customs described in such studies as that conducted by John Freed concerning the Archdiocese of Salzburg, married German women in later medieval society had a very tenuous grasp on property. The economic power that women could accrue through land inheritance prior the later Middle Ages is not at all mirrored in the inheritance laws described for this specific thirteenth century German town

Other evidence exists that demonstrates the economic losses women incurred during the later Middle Ages as well. The Ladies Tournament, a German tale of courtly behavior composed by an anonymous author during the thirteenth century, discusses the proprieties and traditions associated with noble marriage and family life. Although the general pretense of the story is of a community of men and a community of women conversing over matters of courtly rules rather than being an epic tale, its purpose is similar to Ruodlieb’s in that it provides insight into the traditions governing marriage in German society during that time.

In Sarah Westphal-Wihl’s analysis of the story, a marriage is described, as it is in the story of Ruodlieb; however, rather than an exchange of dowries, “the only marital assignment mentioned in the text is the dowry...there is no hint of a contribution from the groom’s side, or of any informal exchange of gifts.”

According to Westphal, the dowry emerged as a custom in Germany by 1200, and although the earlier customs of morning gifts and other gifts on the part of the husband still existed, they are not mentioned in the text of The Tournament of Ladies. This telling omission highlights a growing emphasis on the dowry of a woman, and the concurrent diminishment of a man’s gift to his bride. From the time of Ruodlieb during the eleventh century to that of the Tournament, women’s ability to acquire property and through marriage customs had been altered greatly.

The women of Germany were losing economic influence as the Middle Ages progressed, and comparable losses affected women in the Low Countries as well. Simon’s work reveals that while some “women may have occupied prominent positions in trade and in a few crafts during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and early fifteenth centuries...their numbers declined in the next decades.”

Also, like in the German regions of Europe, restrictions were increasingly placed on female industrial workers; in both Ghent and Flanders “in 1374 the wives of fullers or women of any sort were forbidden to wash any types of clothes.”

Further restrictions were also delineated concerning the economic tasks undertaken by women in beguinages: “because the beguines were able to produce goods cheaply, they found themselves drawn into disputes with the guilds and corporations who considered the beguine activities to be unfair competition.”The earlier urban culture that allowed for a high degree of female participation was doubtlessly being challenged.”

- Susan Papino, Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period

[dwellordream]

“A dower was nearly the reverse of a dowry. Rather than being what a bride brought to her marriage through her family, a dower was a gift by a husband to his bride. By the Norman period, 'the church had largely taken over the [Saxon] secular marriage service' and it now 'became customary for the bridegroom to endow his bride ad ostium ecclesiae — not at the betrothal but at the time of the marriage ceremony'. The control exercised by queens over their dower lands can be seen as a 'complex "bundle of rights"', in some cases referring to direct property holdings, in others, spheres of jurisdiction, and, in others still, solely sources of revenue.

Although there is not a considerable amount recorded on the dowers of queens, one possibility that has been proposed is that the resources controlled by queens was highest before the twelfth century and dwindled after that. Janet Nelson pointed out, however, that one must be careful in making over- generalizations, because 'the queen's control of "her" resources was a highly contingent variable and no generalization about this holds true'. This variability demonstrates that 'means', the preconditions for authority discussed here, fluctuated, which in turn impacted the overall authority displayed by queens.

Heather Tanner points out several variables that affected the dower lands of queens. She noted that 'by custom, queens were assigned lands and revenues to maintain household and office, but there was little continuity in the estates that later became known as the queen's dower. The property a queen might inherit from her family, a queen-dowager's possible survival, and political exigencies all influenced the amount of land a queen might control.'

All of these factors affect one or more of the queens of this study. For instance, having brought to the marriage her own English lands, Matilda of Boulogne does not seem to have received a substantial dowry from Stephen, whereas Matilda of Scotland, who is not recorded as having brought any land to her marriage, received from Henry I a fairly large dower. Similarly, the fact that Adeliza of Louvain outlived Henry I may have compromised the lands received by Matilda of Boulogne, although Matilda was in less need of a dower. Overall, the dower lands held by a queen were a seminal but mercurial precondition for the authority of queens.

One can see from charters issued shortly after Matilda of Scotland's marriage to Henry I of England that, despite not bringing much wealth to the union, the queen was provided with a generous bride gift of substantial dower lands. Huneycutt notes several areas over which Matilda of Scotland exercised jurisdiction, including Waltham Abbey (which Huneycutt lists as possibly worth in excess of £100); the church of Holy Trinity at Aldgate; the nunneries of Romsey and Wilton (together valued in the Domesday book at nearly £170); the abbey of Malmesbury, and numerous properties in the city of London itself.

As can be seen from the table in Appendix 4, at least four of these six estates (the term 'estates' is used here in the most general sense) were passed on to two or more of her successors. From these properties, Matilda would have received revenue in the form of rents, tithes, tolls, and taxes. Based on the wording of the charters issued by Matilda of Scotland, it is hard to know precisely which of these areas other than the holdings in London were held in demesne by her and which she controlled as Henry I's deputy. Still, throughout her life, Matilda of Scotland controlled many lands and received from them a substantial monetary income, all of which would have given her another foundation to her administrative authority.

Adeliza's dower lands and her control of them are especially interesting because she outlived Henry I for sixteen years. This relates directly to one of the variables outlined by Tanner. It is known from the Pipe Roll of 1130 that Adeliza held lands in a variety of counties, including Essex, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Middlesex. Among these properties was Arundel, which Adeliza received from her first husband. Her second husband, William d'Aubigny, became earl of Arundel upon their marriage. That Queen Adeliza kept possession of her dower lands is visible from the fact that, upon Adeliza and William's deaths, the land and title of Arundel passed to their son. This may have been a bribe to keep her loyal to Stephen.

This would have been a particularly important bribe, because Adeliza was the mother-in-law of the Empress and had close enough ties to her to justify openly receiving Empress Matilda upon the beginning of her English campaign for the throne, despite Adeliza's husband William d'Aubigny's 'stalwart support' of Stephen. Still, it seems some control of the area eventually reverted to the king, as income from Arundel was given to Eleanor of Aquitaine as part of her dower from Henry II. As Adeliza of Louvain died in 1151, three years before Eleanor's coronation, it is possible that Henry II considered this land both part of the 'traditional' queen's demesne and available. In any case, Adeliza's control of these dower lands markedly contributed to her administrative authority, particularly after the death of Henry I, as will be shown in the following chapters.”

- Lida Sophia Townsley, Twelfth-century English queens: charters and authority